8. Quell
Chapter eight
Quell
I wake up to a silence so complete it feels deliberate, like a blanket tucked tight around me.
No cars, no neighbor’s TV leaking through the drywall.
Just the soft, steady sound of my own breath, loud in my ears.
The mattress is solid under me, not hard, but definitely not the limp, collapsing thing I sleep on at home.
I run my hand along the edge of the blanket.
It is clean, soft, and smells faintly like laundry detergent.
Not my detergent. Nothing here is mine. The last of the sedative drags at my thoughts, making them slow and sticky, but one thing is clear: I am a prisoner.
The cell just happens to be the most comfortable one I’ve ever seen.
I sit up, bracing myself for the wave of dizziness.
It comes, and then it goes. The room swims into focus: white walls, thick curtains block the single window, a single overhead light behind a frosted panel, glowing evenly.
The door looks heavy, and probably locked.
Next to the bed, there is a little table with a tray on it.
Folded clothes. Another door is cracked open just enough to show tiles and the edge of a sink. . a bathroom.
It doesn’t add up. I pictured zip ties, maybe a chair, maybe a damp basement. Not this. Not a room that looks like a hotel, if hotels have all their personality stripped away.
My mouth tastes metallic and stale. I swing my legs off the bed.
I am still in my clothes, and the clean ones on the side are mine.
I’m dressed as I was when he stepped out of the shadows and grabbed me, except no socks or shoes.
I think I was wearing them while making the tea, but I’m doubting my own memory too much these days.
My bare feet press against the floor. It’s concrete, but smooth, almost polished.
There is a tray beside me. Glass of water, covered plate, two white pills in a little paper cup. Painkillers, maybe. Or poison. I leave the pills and take the water. My throat is so dry I nearly choke on the first gulp. It tastes clean, cold. I drink it all.
I try the door. Locked, obviously. The knob doesn’t budge. No keyhole either. I press my ear to the wood, but it is dead silent. Wherever I am, he sealed me in good.
The bathroom door opens fine. Small but decent: toilet, sink, shower. One towel, white and stiff, like it just came from the wash. On the sink, a toothbrush still in the wrapper. Toothpaste. Soap. Even a comb.
I look in the mirror. The person staring back could be anyone. Pale, eyes hollow, hair in wild tufts. No bruises. No cuts. No sign I’ve been hurt. Just taken.
The shower is tempting. I want to scrub off whatever he dosed me with. The water turns hot right away, steam fogging the mirror. I step in and let it hit me, pounding away the sweat and the leftover fear. For a second, with my eyes closed, I can almost believe I am home.
But I’m not. I am somewhere else. Somewhere he made for me.
The soap is unscented, plain. I scrub until my skin is pink and tingling, like I can wash off the weight of his stare. The water stays hot, steady. Whoever built this place thought of everything.
I stand under the spray until my fingers prune, using the time to think. To plan. But what plan? I don’t know where I am. Don’t know what he wants. All I know is I am alive, unhurt, and clean. That is more than most people get when they are taken by men like him.
That should be a comfort. It isn’t.
I turn off the water and grab the towel. It is soft, not scratchy, soaking up the water without hurting. Another small kindness. Why bother if you are just going to kill someone? Unless that isn’t the plan.
The food tray is still there, waiting. I lift the cover. A sandwich, honey, with the crusts removed. An apple and a slice of cake. Nothing fancy. Real food, though. Not instant noodles. Not the kind of thing you give someone you plan to get rid of.
My stomach growls. I try to remember the last time I ate. Yesterday? Before he came. Before everything went sideways.
I sit on the edge of the bed, tray balanced on my knees.
The first bite of eggs is careful, like maybe they’ll taste wrong.
But they don’t. They taste fine. Better than fine.
I take another bite, bigger this time. After that, I just eat.
Not thinking about it. Not tasting, really. Just filling up the emptiness.
When it is gone, I put the tray back on the table. The pills are still there. Probably not poison. If he wants me dead, he’s had chances. So what are they? I pick them up. Just white tablets. Aspirin? My head is pounding, though I don’t want to admit it.
I take them with the last of the water and wait, as if something dramatic might happen. It doesn’t. Just a slow loosening in my shoulders when the headache fades.
And then nothing. Just quiet. Time stretching out, slow and sticky.
I pace. Eight steps from wall to wall. Six from bed to door. I press my palm to the smooth surface, searching for seams, cameras, vents, anything. Nothing. The walls are blank, unbroken. If there are cameras, they are invisible.
I open the curtains, finding my view is nothing but the solid red brick wall of the building opposite. The light doesn’t change. No sense of day or night. My watch is gone. I realized that in the shower. No clock. Just time stretching, the same minute after minute, no difference between them.
I try to think of everything I know about my strange kidnaper. I don't know much about him. He kills people for money. He watches me. He was in my apartment. He took my drawings. He drugged me and brought me here. But he didn't hurt me. He didn’t threaten me. He doesn’t even raise his voice.
That is almost worse than violence. Violence, I understand. This quiet, careful thing is something else.
I lie on the bed, staring up. Time passes, measured by my breathing, by the curl and uncurl of my fists.
And then it hits me. Sudden, sharp, so clear it makes me sit up, pulse racing.
I haven’t dreamed.
Not the usual half-remembered dreams, the kind everyone gets. I mean, I haven’t had one of those dreams. The visions. The deaths. The moments right before someone’s life ends, except I see it through the killer’s eyes. Through his eyes.
I always get them. Every night, for years. Sometimes more than one. Sometimes so vivid I wake up screaming, hands already scrabbling for pencil and paper, desperate to get the images out before they burn me from the inside out.
But not last night. Last night is just darkness. Empty, peaceful darkness.
My breath catches. If I haven’t dreamed, it means he hasn’t killed. And if he hasn’t killed…
Has he changed his pattern for me?
The thought makes my head spin. Terrifying. And, in a way I don’t want to admit or even look at too closely, sort of… intimate. Like he set aside who he is just for one night. Just so I could sleep without nightmares.
Or maybe he’s just been busy, planning what to do with me. Maybe tonight there’ll be two dreams, two deaths to make up for the one he skips.
But I don’t think so. The care that went into the room, the meal, the shower, it all feels like something else. Something that makes my skin prickle with a weird mix of dread and something uncomfortably close to gratitude.
I’ve been afraid of the dreams for so long. Afraid of what they show me. Afraid of the person whose eyes I see through every night. And now, here I am, in his hands, and for the first time in years my mind is quiet.
What kind of monster is he, that he can give me this peace? What kind of monster am I, that I can feel anything except horror, being here?
Or it could have been the reason why he drugged me. Maybe whatever he injected me with worked better than my sleeping tablets and shut out the nightmares.
The lock clicks suddenly. My entire body tenses. I stare at the door, waiting. It swings open.
He stands there. He looks exactly like before: suit pressed, features so normal you’d forget them, hands at his sides, not a hair out of place. But this time, something is different. He looks at me as if he's just noticed something new. Like I am a puzzle he doesn’t expect.
“You’re awake,” he says. His voice is low, steady. Not warm, not cold. Just… a fact.
I nod. My throat is tight. I don’t trust it.
He steps in, shuts the door. He doesn’t lock it. That catches me. Like he knows I won’t run. Like he knows he doesn’t have to bother.
“How are you feeling?” he asks. It is so normal, so out of place, I almost laugh.
“Like I’ve been kidnaped.” My voice sounds rough. Not quite my own.
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “Fair enough.”
No apology. No explanation. He just watches me, eyes steady, careful.
The silence stretches. I can’t stand it.
“What do you want from me?”
“To talk.” That is it. “I have questions. I think you do too.”
He is right. I have a thousand questions, all jammed up in my mouth. But one makes it out first.
“I didn’t dream last night,” I say.
Something flickers across his face, a quick, slippery thing, gone before I can pin it down. Recognition, maybe. Or satisfaction.
“No,” he says, agreeing easily. “You didn’t.”
“You didn’t kill anyone.”
He tilts his head, thoughtful. “No. I was busy.”
“With me.”
“Yeah.”
Just one word, but it lands between us, heavy, deliberate. He breaks his pattern. For me. Because of me.
I should be terrified. Should be scrambling for a weapon, or plotting an escape, or at least pretending to fight. Instead, I just… sit back on the bed, the urge to resist gone. Not surrender, exactly. Something more like reluctant acceptance.
“My name is Quell. You probably know that, but I know nothing about you. Except.. y'know, stupid stuff.”
“What stupid stuff?” He frowns as if I've offended him somehow.
“Like how you kill people.”
“Are you asking my name?” He questions, with the hint of a smile creeping across his mouth.
“It would be nice to know, yes.”
“Talon.”
“Of course it is.” That explains the small claw shapes on my apartment drawing where I thought the cameras were. “Is it real?”
“Says the guy called Quell.”
“True.” I chuckle at the irony. My odd name was the only thing my parents ever gave me before they dropped me in foster care. I got in the way of their druggy parties, apparently.
Reason for abandonment: pulls funny faces when I smoke weed.
That was the best my mom could do. Maybe walking away was the best thing she could do for me, but I'd love to ask her about my gift.
Did her magic weed give me visions twenty years later? Did she see stuff too? I wonder sometimes if it was the dreams that drove her to the drugs. That's one thing I'll never know.
“So now what?” I ask.
“Now we talk,” he says. He doesn’t come closer, doesn’t loom or threaten. Just waits patiently, like he can stand there forever. Like he knows I’m not about to bolt.
And the worst part is, he is right. I’m not going anywhere. Not yet. Because somewhere in all this, the quiet, the strange gentleness, the way I haven’t had a single nightmare since he took me, I start to feel something else.
Curiosity.
“Okay,” I state, like I have a choice.
And something changes. I feel it, the way the air shifts, thickening with something new. This isn’t just about survival anymore. It is about figuring him out. About letting myself be seen, and seeing him in return.
I don’t know what that means for either of us. But when I meet his gaze, steady and unwavering, I know we both cross a line.
And honestly, that scares me more than anything else ever has.